The Internet and the world-wide web have allowed consumers to complete business transactions with organizations or individuals located across continents from the comfort of their own desk. In an increasingly global marketplace, it is becoming imperative for businesses/organizations to provide web site content in multiple languages in order to expand their customer base beyond their home countries. In addition, as the demographics of a country change to include foreign language speakers, it is increasingly important to communicate with existing customers and/or potential customers in their native language. For example, several large U.S. retailers have announced that serving the Hispanic segment is now a very high priority. Some U.S. retailers have even hired Hispanic advertisement agencies to start marketing to the Hispanic market in their native language—Spanish.
Traditionally, an organization that wants to translate its web site to another language can choose from several techniques, each having significant drawbacks. One technique involves purchasing machine translation technology. Machine translation is sometimes useful to get a rough idea as to the meaning of the content on a web site, but it is far from ideal. For most organizations, this type of translation, although convenient, is not practical because the quality of the translation from machines is simply not good enough to be posted on their web sites.
Another technique involves managing the translation process by deploying human translators and either maintaining multiple web sites for each language, or re-architecting the existing web site back-end technology to accommodate multiple languages. This requires significant resources in terms of time and cost, including a high level of complexity and duplication of effort. In addition, dynamic and e-commerce sites present other challenges as well, as the information to be translated resides in multiple places (e.g., a Structured Query Language database, static Hyper Text Markup Language pages and dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language page templates) and each translated site interfacing with the same e-commerce or back-end engine. Further, as a web site undergoes changes, it is important to handle ongoing maintenance properly. Although, this approach may yield superior translations that are suitable for professional web sites of large organizations, it is at a great cost. Most organizations simply do not have, or do not want to invest in, the resources necessary to handle this task internally.
For example, FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART) is a block diagram illustrating the system architecture of a conventional web site. The web site of FIG. 1 is presented in a first language, such as English. FIG. 1 shows a web server 112 connected to the Internet 116 via a web connection. A public user 118, such as a person using a computer with a web connection, can access the web server 112 via the Internet 116 and download information, such as a web page 114, from the web server 112 for viewing. The web server 112 is operated by programming logic 110, comprising instructions on how to retrieve, serve, and accept information for processing. The web server 112 further has access to a database 102 for storing information, as well as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) template files 104, graphics files 106 and multimedia files 108, all of which constitute the web site served by web server 112.
FIG. 2 (PRIOR ART) is a block diagram illustrating the system architecture of a conventional web site presented in two languages. The web site of FIG. 2 is presented in a first language, such as English (as shown above for FIG. 1) and in a second language, such as Spanish. FIG. 2 shows the web server 112 and the other English language components described in FIG. 1, including the database 102 of information, the HTML template files 104, graphics files 106, multimedia files 108 and programming logic 110. FIG. 2 further shows the public user 118 accessing the web server 112 via the Internet 116 and downloading information, such as a web page 202 in English or Spanish language.
FIG. 2 also includes components related to providing web content in Spanish language. For example, FIG. 2 (has Spanish language components, including a database 208 of information, HTML template files 214, graphics files 216, multimedia files 210 and programming logic 212. These Spanish language components are managed by a multi-lingual content manager 206, which manages requests for information in the dual languages. FIG. 2 further shows that the web server 112 is re-engineered to serve multiple sets of content in different languages.
As can be seen in the difference between FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the deployment of the Spanish language components 204 and multi-lingual content manager 206 of FIG. 2 requires a significant expenditure of effort and resources. Further, the deployment requires re-engineering the web server 112, adding to the time and cost associated with the deployment. Additionally, once the Spanish language components 204 have been established, continuous synchronization with changes in the English language components results in a recurring cost.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.